MicroWarehouse was the largest and longest established at the time, direct resellers of branded IT products and services to business in the United Kingdom. At the height of their industry dominance, Micro Warehouse had 3,500 employees in thirteen different countries.
By 2000, Micro Warehouse was the leading direct marketer and catalogue retailer of personal computer products, with worldwide sales of $2.6 billion. MicroWarehouse owned and operated the domain names Inmac.co.uk, MacWarehouse.co.uk and MicroWarehouse.co.uk. All three were online, web based, computer hardware and software retailers.
History
The company was originally co founded by Peter Godfrey,
Felix Dennis and Bob Bartner in 1987, and was based in South Norwalk, Connecticut. After an initial public offering on December 10, 1992, the company paved the way for a variety of competitors. In the 1990s, Micro Warehouse acquired a large number of similar companies in Europe.
Companies were acquired in the United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, Sweden and Finland.
Inmac was also purchased, raising European sales to over $700 million. After growing to become the fifth largest catalogue company in the world and a dominant re seller for Apple, Microsoft, and many other hardware manufacturers and software publishers, a class action lawsuit distracted senior management for several years.
Jerry York,
CFO who led turnarounds at
IBM and
Chrysler
Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...
, was the
chairman
The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...
,
president, and
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
. The
Los Angeles buyout firm
Freeman, Spogli, York, and a group of private investors including
Michael Ovitz and
Gary L. Wilson
Gary L. Wilson is an American business executive. He served as chairman of the board of Northwest Airlines, chief financial officer of Walt Disney Company and chief financial officer of Marriott Corporation.
Early life
Wilson was born and raised ...
, spent $725 million to take Micro Warehouse private in February 2000. The
leveraged buyout left the company burdened with $200 million in debt.
The company sold its North American operations to
CDW Corporation
CDW Corporation, headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois, is a provider of technology products and services for business, government and education. The company has a secondary division known as ''CDW-G'', devoted solely to United States governm ...
just two and a half years later, on September 8, 2003, for $22 million. Micro Warehouse filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and York announced his resignation. The bankrupt company owed millions to its unsecured creditors. $17.9 million to
Ingram Micro, $8.6 million to
Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
, $3.1 million to
Toshiba, and $2 million to
IBM.
MicroWarehouse, along with Equanet and MacWarehouse are the three brands owned by
Dixons Retail plc
Dixons Retail plc was one of the largest consumer electronics retailers in Europe. In the United Kingdom, the company operated Currys, Currys Digital, PC World (with stores increasingly dual branded 'Currys PC World'), Dixons Travel and its ser ...
. WHSU Inc. and WHSU International Inc. (together known as MicroWarehouse) was acquired by the DSGi on 4 June 2004. On 9 October 2003, MicroWarehouse filed bankruptcy, which ultimately led to purchase of the MicroWarehouse by the group. When MicroWarehouse was acquired by the group, it became a division of
PC World Business.
MacWarehouse closure
In June 2012, the MacWarehouse website was replaced by a simple banner that redirected you to the website for PC World Business.
References
External links
Company website
{{Currys plc
Consumer electronics retailers of the United Kingdom
Currys plc
Retail companies established in 1987
Retail companies disestablished in 2012